Sony’s HDR-XR520V, selling for roughly $1500, is a good travel companion, thanks to its new added feature – the built-in GPS mapping system. Moreover, it has much more to recommend it. From sharp video quality and a 240 GB hard disk drive to a wealth of video features, the HDR-XR520V is a worthy addition to Sony’s camcorder family. The design of external controls is a gleaming indication that this camcorder appeals to the advanced tourist crowd, rather than the budget filmmaker brigade.

Sony has opted for the hybrid approach; that’s why it didn’t choose to build any flash-memory-only standard definition camcorders. This gave birth to the SR65 and the SR85, except that the latter has a larger HDD capacity.

Given its touch screen design, the Sony DCR-SR300 suits the casual shooters, who will mostly stick with the camera’s Easy mode. If you’d prefer a hard-drive-based camcorder instead of a tape- or mini-DVD-based one, then this model is good for you.

The Sony DCR-SR65 came out in 2008 with Sony’s bid to produce camcorders that are more compact. The DCR-SR65 launched together with the other Sony hard disk based camcorders, the DCR-SR45, DCR-SR85 and the DCR-SR220. The DCR-SR65 measures 3in X 4.4in X 3in (HxDxW) and weighs about 14.1 oz.

The Sony DCR-SR42 is Sony’s entry level Hard Disk Drive (HDD) camcorder released last March of 2007. A 1/6 inch Advanced HAD CCD imaging sensor capable of recording videos in MPEG2 format powers this standard definition camcorder. Like many Sony camcorders, the DCR-SR42 has three video quality settings with its high quality setting (recording at 9Mbps), medium quality (recording at 6Mbps) and low quality (recording at 3Mbps).

The Panasonic SDR-H60 Camcorder is a full featured camcorder that packs many elements for a very competitive price. This camcorder is Panasonic’s number one single-chip, standard definition hard drive camcorder. Its 60GB hard drive provides enough space for recording 14hrs of high quality videos and 54hrs of low quality videos. If that is not enough, you can continue recording in MPEG 2 format thru an SD or SDHC memory card that you can place in its built-in memory slot.

The Sony DCR-SR200, released March, 2007, is an upgrade of the Sony DCR-SR100 that gave Sony great reviews from its customers. The DCR-SR200 has a 1/3 inch ClearVid CMOS sensor that replaces the 1/3 inch CCD sensor used by the older DCR-SR100.

Sony released their DCR-SR45 in 2008, together with three other standard definition camcorders (DCR-SR65, DCR-SR85 and the DCR-SR220). Their small sizes and the capability of recording to its internal hard disk drive or an option to record to a Memory Stick Duo PRO inserted in its built-in memory slot characterized them all. The DCR-SR45 measures about 3in x 4.4in x 3in (WxDxH) and weighs only 12.3 oz.

The Panasonic HDC-HS300 is the company’s top camcorder for 2009 and easily fits in the first-class camcorder category. With a price range of $1200-$1499, the HDC-HS300 brims with features and manual controls and boasts an amazing video quality. The HDC-HS300 also features Panasonic’s intelligent Auto (iA) capability and the Advanced Optical Image Stabilization (Advanced OIS) which equips the camcorder with excellent shake-reduction capabilities.

The Panasonic HDC-HS9 is a very compact High Definition camcorder. The HDC-HS9 qualifies as a Hybrid camcorder because it can record on both an internal hard disk and removable flash memory cards. While this hybrid model does overcome some of the drawbacks of hard drive camcorders, the hard disk still adds to the size and cost of the device. The HDC-HS9 is roughly $300 more than the equivalent HDC-SD9 which could easily buy two 32GB SDHC cards. One of the better features of this camcorder is its high quality picture and sound. It allows you to set the camcorder at a Digital Cinema mode and shoot in the progressive 1080/25p format (25 frames per second). The Progressive scanning captures pictures that have film-like quality. The colors are vivid and the pictures are clear and crisp.